When The Going Gets Tough, The WAHMs Get Resilient

Continuing on with the DRIVE acronym, guest blogger Angela Wills is going to talk about letter R and resilience today. Be sure to read about the first trait of DRIVE -  determination before reading any further.

The first ‘real’ business I ever started was a bath & body business. Our main product was handmade ‘old fashioned’ soap. I was so excited and I would say very inexperienced and naive in the world of business and it’s workings.

During the first month of business I decided that we would participate in a home show. The cost to attend was about $300 and according to the brochure there would be about 10,000 people going through. 10,000 people was a lot of people who might buy soap! So we did the calculations – let’s say 10% of those people bought $10 worth of soap – that’s $10,000 worth of sales! Can you guess what happened next? We spend weeks and way too much money making piles and piles of handmade soap. Here is a pic:

Why am I sharing this with you? Well many people would have given up when they came home with about $230 worth of sales. Yep – not even enough to cover the cost of being there let alone all the time, effort and soap that went to that event!

Many people would have quit right there. They would have said business is not for me. But I didn’t. Why? Because I had the DRIVE trait we’re covering today – RESILIENCE.

DRIVE stands for:

Determination (Monday’s post)
Resilience (Today!)
Initiative (Wednesday)
Values (Thursday)
Energy (Friday)

As a business owner you must be prepared or at least willing to deal with setbacks. They might be minor or they might be major. Whatever the setback if your determination and resilience are strong enough you WILL get through and keep going towards your goals.

Back in my soapmaking business days I really didn’t know what I wanted other than I wanted to be in business. I knew I needed to be my own boss. I knew there was a way to get there and I knew if I kept trying and trying (and trying!) I’d figure it out.

Some people will tell you running a business is a piece of cake, that you can follow and color by numbers formula and the riches will follow. I know you’re here reading this blog though because you know it takes effort, focus and hard work to build a long-term business that feeds your family AND your soul.

What is Resilience?

Here’s the wikipedia definition:

Resilience in psychology is the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. It also includes the ability to bounce back to homeostasis after a disruption. Thirdly, it can be used to indicate having an adaptive system that uses exposure to stress to provide resistance to future negative events[1].

Are you resilient? Can you be?

Ask yourself these questions to determine if your resolve in business is clear and steady:

• Can I find a way bounce back from a MAJOR financial business setback?
• Can I find a way to bounce back from a MAJOR emotional business setback?
• Am I willing to change my business, products or services to fit my markets needs?
• Am I prepared to handle an unreasonable and destructive customer who’s out to hurt my good name?
• Am I prepared emotionally to handle the ups and downs of a business?

Not many people talk about emotions and business, like we’re supposed to be robots with nothing in our heads but business sense. BALONEY! We are emotional beings. How we feel and how we handle those feelings has everything to do with how we run our businesses. I once heard a quote that said something like “our business is a true reflection of ourselves”. If you want a business that stands the test of time and is RESILIENT so must you be.

I don’t want you to leave this article thinking business is too tough and you can’t handle it. Quite the opposite! I’m delivering this article to you in the hopes that you will go in strong, you’ll be resilient to no end and you’ll keep building the strongest business your niche has ever seen. I believe you can do it!

In my own business I’ve been resilient in many different ways. If you want to follow my story and learn more about how this single mom makes an living on the internet then visit me at http://www.MarketersMojo.com

Pop by tomorrow as we talk about INITIATIVE.